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Talk:Episode 5: Polarized - Theories/@comment-29245530-20160918003842
Survivor's guilt. The entire game is the power-fantasy of someone suffering survivor's guilt. People think the game begins when Max wakes up in class, after her "premonition" about the storm. At no point is Max shown to have "premonitions" through the rest of the game. Rewinding is her thing. I think the game begins with a rewind from the storm. The town will be wiped out by the coming storm, nothing Max can do will prevent this, at all. Any survivor of a catastrophe will find a way to blame themselves, even if it involves fantasising about having the power to change things they never could have. Throughout the game, you're encouraged to explore the repercussions of every choice you make, being able to rewind, and see how things would go, another way. This isn't literally happening, I don't think. This is Max exploring, in her mind, the alternative paths things could have taken. Just like when you're looking back on your own memories, and hypothesising about how things would go if they were just a little different. If you'd said that thing sooner, if you'd been there for that friend. Everything in Arcadia Bay was perfectly fine, up until the first day we play through. Max stops Chloe from getting shot, and the alternative, the close-ness of Chloe getting shot, is traumatic for her. It is this one event that sticks in Max's mind as the beginning of the end, when everything started spiralling out of control. The very first serious use of the rewind we're presented with is to undo Chloe's death. I think this is Max confronting the idea Chloe might have died, but, there is no game after that point, you need to prevent her death. This is because, at this point in her coping process, Chloe's death is unthinkable. The other alternative paths haven't been explored, for Max. Every choice Max makes, to "prevent" the hurricane, revolves around Chloe: the best thing in Max's life, the one person she couldn't do without. Every attempt to save Chloe through alternate timelines still resulted in the destruction of the town. The final choice we are presented with, as we know, is to either let Chloe die, at the start of these events, or to save Chloe, and damn the town. We are then presented with a "good" ending, in which everybody lives, and Max attends Chloe's funeral, and a "bad" ending, in which Chloe and Max drive away from the ruins of the town. In the "bad" ending, Max has love. She doesn't think she deserves it. So many people died, and Max gets to live, and has Chloe. In the "good" ending, Max makes a sacrifice, gives up love and happiness, for the good of the town. This is somewhat reminiscent to me of the first Butterfly Effect movie (in which I also believe none of the time travel was literal, but hypothetical. The best outcome for everyone else was the worst for the main character. Sacrifice to assuage guilt). I think people have these endings backwards. If Chloe dies, and the town is saved, Max has fully retreated into a fantasy world in which she had the power ot save everyone, by sacrificing her own happiness. She's refusing to accept the reality. If Chloe lives, and the town is destroyed, Max is coming to terms with the tragedy, grieving properly, and dealing with her survivor's guilt. As such, we have, instead of a "good" and "bad" ending, a fantasy, and a true ending. People who saved the town like to think they have power, in their lives. They like the idea they can change things, if only they were given the chance. Those of us who saved Chloe have learned that the past is the past, and the only way forward is to accept it, and move on. I wish there were some age demographics for people who picked the various endings. It would be fascinating.